It Will Never Happen With Me!

Good morning all,


I had one of those "duh!" moments this morning reading Matthew chapter 23. Here is the portion that struck me:

"NLT Matthew 23:29 "How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed and decorate the graves of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. 30 Then you say, 'We never would have joined them in killing the prophets.' 31 "In saying that, you are accusing yourselves of being the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead. Finish what they started. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell? 34 I will send you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law. You will kill some by crucifixion and whip others in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city. 35 As a result, you will become guilty of murdering all the godly people from righteous Abel to Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered in the Temple between the altar and the sanctuary. 36 I assure you, all the accumulated judgment of the centuries will break upon the heads of this very generation."

This comes in a series of warnings to the hypocritical Pharisees in which Jesus constantly points out to them that they have obeyed the letter of the law but failed mightily to obey the Spirit, they have traded justice, mercy and compassion for exactness in their rule following. In this passage that struck me Jesus tells them that they try to make up for what their fathers did in killing the prophets by making memorial tombs and decorating graves and proclaiming that had they been alive they would not have killed them, not even been a part of it. Basically they say, "Nope, it will never happen to me!" Yet this audience is the very same audience that will ultimately scourge and crucify Jesus; and in that is the message to all of us in the world today. As we look at people struggling in sin and life, we can be tempted to get a superior "Christian" attitude and begin to proclaim to ourselves and others that we are above all of that having reached a spiritual place where we do not have to worry about sin, or brokenness or failing. There is no place more dangerous!

Jesus tells the Pharisees, not only would you have killed the prophets long ago but that He is also about to send prophets in there midst now which they are going to kill. They can not atone for what their fathers did and worse they will do the same thing. He finally tells them that there is nothing they can do to escape the fires of hell.

That is the truth for all of us. There is nothing we can do to escape judgement; nothing that is except surrendering our lives to Jesus. It is Jesus and Jesus alone that causes us to escape judgement and brings us forgiveness of our sin. While we all strive towards holiness and perfection in love, we all have the carnal nature dwelling within us and it can raise its ugly head up at the most inconvenient times. What we must always be on guard for is that attitude of the Pharisees, "It can never happen to me," because the moment we start to think that is the moment we become seriously susceptible to it definitively happening.

It was true for the Pharisees and it is true for us. Left to our own accords we will repeat the sins of the fathers, but if we will break the chain of independence, or relying exclusively on self, and place ourselves in a relationship of dependence on Christ, we can find freedom.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron